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 EVESHAM

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EVESHAM

Ages in many churches it was joined to the Sunday- Office. If it occurs on a double or a semi-double feast, it is limited to a commemoration in the Lauds and Mass (a feast of the first class excludes this commem- oration), the ninth lesson in the Breviary, and the last Gospel in .Mass. If it occurs on a day within an ordi- nary octave, the Mass is said of the vigil, the Office of the" octave; if it occurs on a jeria major, the vigil is omitted in the Breviary and commemorated only in the Mass, if the feria has a proper mass; if not (e. g. in Advent), the mass is said of the vigil, the feria is com- memorated. In the -Ambrosian Liturgy of Milan only the vigils of Christmas and Pentecost are kept, at least by a special

BlNTERlM, Die DenkwiirdigkeUen der christ-katholischen Kircke (Mainz, 1829); Scheod in Kirchenlexic(m. s. v. Vigil; Rubric(B generates Brei'iarii Romania tit. 6; Rubrica- generales Missalis Rom., tit. 3; Pleithner, Aelieste Geschichte des Breviergebets (Kempten, 1887).

F. G. HOLWECK.

Evesham Abbey, founded by St. Egwin, third Bishop of Worcester, about 701, in Worcestershire, England, and dedicated to the Blessed Virgin. The founder's charter of endowment, dated 714, records that a herdsman of the bishop, named Eoves, was one day favoured with a vision of Our Lady. St. Egwin. being informed, visited the spot and there the Mother of God appeared to him also, commanding him to erect in that place a monastery in her honour for Benedic- tine monks. The bishop at once set about the task, being liberally assisted in the work by Ethelred and Kenred, successive kings of Mercia, and others. The derivation of the name Evesham is accounted for by the above legend. It is stated, though contemporary charters make the fact doubtful, that St. Egwin re- signed his see in order to become first abbot of the new foundation, which he ruled until his death in 717. He w-as buried in the abbey church and his shrine, beauti- ficil by subsequent abbots, liecame in after years one of the richest and most popular in the West of Eng- land, and many miracles are recorded as having taken place there. In 941, after the havoc wrought by the Danes, the few remaining monks who had survived were ejected and secular canons installed in their place. Their possession of the abbey, however, did not last long, for in 960 St. Dunstan and St. Ethel- wold, then engaged upon their great reform of the English monasteries, restored the Benedictines to their own. A second expulsion occurred in 977 and it was not until 1014 that the monks cITected their final re- turn. With the N'ornian conquest and the consolida- tion of the kingdom of England, Evesham grew and prospereil, and enjoying royal favour became one of the most important abbeys of Black Monks in the country, so much so, imleed, that the jealousy of the bishops of Worcester was aroused.

As in the case of many other monasteries they

claimed rights of visitation and diocesan authority over the monks. The dispute continued for a long time, but eventually the exemption from episcopal jurisdiction, originally obtained by St. Egwin, was confirmed by Rome in 120G. In this as in other mat- ters, the internal history of the abbey, as reconletl in the "Evesham Chronicle", differs only in detail from that of any other great Benedictine house of the same period. A succession of worthy abbots, seldom broken, guided its fortunes wisely and religiously through the eight centuries of its existence. The use of abbatial pontificalia was obtained in 1160 by Abbot .\dam from the reigning pope. At the height of its prosperity the abbey was one of the largest and most stately in England. It had two dependent "cells" — Penw'ortham, in Lan- cashire, and Alcester, in War- wickshire — besides another in Denmark; the abbots were also the patrons of seventeen neigh- bouring parishes; they had a seat in the House of Lords; and they exercised civil jurisdiction within the bounds of the monastic ter- ritory. The great abbey church, which, besides the magnificent shrine of St. Egwin, contained fifteen altars, was commenced in the eleventh century by ,\bbot Walter and gradually completed by sev- eral subsequent abbots. It was cruciform, with a central tower, and was nearly 300 feet in length. The previous campa- nile having fallen, after being struck liy lightning, a magnificent bell tower, still stand- ing, was built by Abliot Clement Lichfield about 1533.

Within the al>- Gre.^t Towf.r of Evesham .\dbey bey precincts and (Actual Condition) under the very

shadow of its minster, were two parish churches, erected by the monks for the use of the people of the town which had grown up around its walls. That of St. Lawrence dates from the thirteenth century and that of .Ml Saints is of a century later. The last of the great abbots of Evesham, Clement Lichfield, who reigned from 1514 to 1539, added chantries to both of these churches. Unwilling to yield to the rapacity of Henry \III, when the suppression of the monasteries was threatening, he resigned his abbacy, acting, it is said, at Cromwell's suggestion. His unworthy succes- sor was Philip Ilawford, who surrendered the abbey into the king's hands in the same year, 1539. For this service he was rewarded with a pension of £240, and afterwanls became first Protestant Dean of Wor- cester, in which cathedral his tomb may still be seen. The revenues of the abbey at the time of its suppres- sion are given by Dugdale as £1183. The demolition of the buiUlings commenced almost immediately, and the ruins became, as in the case of so many others, a stone quarry for the neighbourhood. Besides the two parish churches and the bell tower, only a gate- way, a cloister arch, the almonry, and a few other isolated fragments remain intact to show what man-